I don't want to sound immodest, but I am still reflecting on the fact that yesterday we were able to make some (admittedly small) changes to a client's blog to line up some text. (We added a new class…not rocket science by any means.) 

I bring this up because it raises an important point people should consider when thinking about consultants' marketing capabilities: can an agency claim to be good at Internet-based marketing if it can't spell "CSS?"

When the tools of the trade were a phone and a pencil, anyone who could write or speak well could "communicate" as your advocate. But today, with advanced telephony (is your agency using Skype?), blogs, Wikis, podcasts, SEO and on and on, the agency you rely upon to disseminate your message had better be able to directly manipulate these technologies.

And I am not talking about outsourcing the work or having on staff some geeky staffers who double as the poor bastards who get the "it was in my email a minute ago" calls. I am talking about partner-level capabilities.

So, ask the guy who shows up once when the account is pitched, then once a quarter (if you are lucky) when the last time was that he or she posted on a blog, initiated a Skypecast or even listened to a technology-focused podcast.

Or don't. You know the answer already.

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